How to End a Relationship and Overcome Depression

Question

I am a 23 year old girl pursuing my final year of CA. I live in Bhopal. I am an introvert, reserved by nature and have very few friends. I love reading and writing.

I used to be in love with my best friend and we both were considered to be the best couple around by our friends. He was so romantic and emotional that I flowed along with him and perceived love grow inside me when I was with him. However, I also used to feel guilty because one of us is a Muslim and the other is a Hindu. Therefore, I knew that my parents and the society we lived in would not accept our union. If ever my parents came to know about our relationship, they would definitely feel very hurt.

Yet, his love, care and support always used to be there. That slowly made me realize that our love would somehow find a way. The time we spent together was heavenly.

So far, everything was good. After some months though, he changed and became a different person. I have requested him to tell me what went wrong but he has been silent. He hasn’t really ended the relationship but he has stopped talking to me. He has become cold and distant. I feel hurt.

It has now been 7 months since I have been feeling lost – not understanding why he has suddenly become so distant. I just can’t figure out what has happened.

This situation has flooded me with myriad emotions. I feel like I have cheated my parents. I feel like I loved the wrong person all along. I feel like he took advantage of me. My studies have suffered. I feel like I cannot trust anyone anymore – especially with respect to love.

I want to start a new life but old memories keep haunting me – they are beautiful memories. Could you show me a way out and tell me what I can do to end this state of depression and feel happier?

Answer

Hi,

First of all, I can completely understand your situation. You must truly be feeling very confused, hurt and depressed. You have definitely gone through a roller coaster ride. However, I think it is definitely possible for you to get out of this situation and start a new life. It will take hard work, but it is possible.

The first thing to figure out is the status of your relationship. You need to be absolutely clear about the fact that you are now no longer in a relationship with your ex-boyfriend. Take some time to tell yourself – that there is no point keeping hopes alive. The reason is that if you keep wishing in your heart that you ex-boyfriend comes back in your life, then you will give the control of your life to him. Coming back or not is his decision – and that decision will control your life as long as you secretly keep wishing that he come back. Therefore, you need to take a clear stand – once and for all – and decide to break up with him. This will be very painful, but you need to do this to be happy.

1) Give the Relationship a Closure

When a relationship ends, there are many hurt feelings we encounter. When I say “closure”, I mean making peace with those hurt feelings, venting them out – and then releasing the past.

After you have decided to end the relationship, take some time out to be alone for about two hours or so. Take a sheet of paper and write down all your feelings about the relationship for the last time. Express the pain you have suffered, express the anger in your heart, write it all down. This will be a very painful process – but you need to do it for one last time. After you have written down everything in your heart, you will feel a bit lighter. You can go ahead and burn this paper – that will be a symbol of releasing all your pent up anger and hurt once and for all. As you see the paper burn, feel yourself letting go of the past and entering a new world.

Next, take another sheet of paper and analyze what happened. Write down these three things:

1) The mistakes you made in the relationship – and what you have now learnt

2) What you can do to have a better relationship in the future

3) Your vision for your new life

Writing all these things will be tough and it will require hard work, but keep writing – this will be worth it. You will also find yourself making some generalizations which you know are not true. For example, you might find yourself writing, “I will never have a relationship again.” or “I will never trust a man again.”. You might also find yourself writing things like, “I will always listen to my parents no matter what happens.” These are generalizations that are not true – and they are coming from a place of being hurt and wronged. Try your best to think consciously and rationally and avoid such generalizations. When you write down what you have learnt and your vision for the future, do not make extreme statements – just make sure you write down the most important lessons this whole incident has taught you. When you write down these lessons, you will feel even better. You will feel ready to now move on and start a new life.

After you have written your new vision for the future and analyzed your mistakes, decide to leave what happened behind once and for all. This is the last time you will be consciously thinking about your past relationship.

2) Stop Interacting With Your Ex-Boyfriend

After giving the “closure” I have talked about, make sure you remove all channels of communication with your ex-boyfriend for at least one year. This might sound harsh but this is necessary for your emotional well being. Any mention of him or any interaction with him will immediately trigger past feelings. Do not answer his calls. Block him from your chat and mail lists. This will sound really harsh but then you need to do it if you want to be happy. You need to be free of any interactions with this person for a long time.

3) Spend a Lot of Time With Other Friends and on Other Activities

Try to make sure you are not alone for a long time, for the next few months. Spend a lot of time having fun with friends, reading, going on vacations, studying – or doing anything that you enjoy doing. Pamper yourself for a while. You can even join a course to learn how to play a musical instrument or you can start exercising. Basically – keep yourself busy doing things you enjoy doing. Spend a lot of time nourishing yourself through time with friends and fun activities.

4) Set a Huge Goal and Start Working Towards It

To make sure your thoughts don’t go back to the past, set a huge goal that motivates you and start working towards it. This can be a goal related to your career, physical fitness or any big goal that motivates you. For example, one goal can be to lose 10 kg of weight. Another goal can be to stand first in your CA examinations. Yet another goal can be to save up a certain amount of money. Or maybe, help 100 people through volunteering. Choose any goal that motivates you and wholeheartedly start taking tons of action towards achieving it. This will make sure your mind is busy and does not go back to the hurt of the past.

If you can do these four things, you will find it to be much easier to release the past and start a new life. As you must already have noticed, releasing the past is definitely not an easy thing to do. It will require a lot of hard work. However, you can make your transition into your new life easier by not interacting with your ex-boyfriend, interacting a lot with other friends who will support you and setting a huge goal that will distract you.

Recovering from your situation is possible. Apart from the positive effect the activities above will have, time itself will also heal your wounds. As months and years pass, you will slowly regain your ability to love and be loved.